Russell Gulch
We finished our day with an extensive exploration of the system of trails south of Russell Gulch and east of Oh-My-God Road. We spent a lot of time and saw a lot of dead ends, but there was still more to explore as we headed back.
We got a fairly late start in Russell Gulch as we headed for Frontenac Mine. Dane was still in two-wheel drive as we headed up the icy hill, and he was rewarded with a fast, sideways slide back down to the bottom. We explored the mine a bit, and enjoyed the big views from the top. There was a lot of trash around and in the mine, which was disappointing.
We left the mine and headed down to the bottom so we could continue south. We figured we'd find a way to connect back with Oh-My-God Road in that direction. We explored quite a few spurs.
The first one went up to the top of a hill and circled around on itself. We were coming back down when we came face to face with a big truck on the narrow trail. They left some trash for us to pick up on our way down, then we never saw them again.
We explored another road that went by a house and some private driveways to private land. We went by the Santa Fe Shaft Mine and then the trail just dead ended at a fence. We turned around and headed back.
We took another spur that was partially hidden in the trees. We saw a hunter on the way by the Kokomo Shaft Mine who didn't seem too happy to see us. We kept following the trail as it got more and more faint, and then we decided that it was just too faint to keep following so we turned around. We took another way out, and that ended up looping back to the big crossroads again.
There was probably more to explore, but the light was fading so we wanted to get out of the network of confusing trails. We headed back for Frontenac Mine and went out a different way. We popped back out onto Oh-My-God Road just a bit south of Russell Gulch, then we headed back down to Idaho Springs.
We had a great dinner at Beau Jo's, wrapping up the 2006 season. It was a great year!
Reports from Other Days: 2
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